64gb is only really worth it if you intended to immediately upgrade the drive. Shader cache and updates stay on the main memory even for games that are on an SD card, over time it will fill up. it’s worth going for the 512 for a seamless useable system. Just my 2c as a deck owner.
I splurged for the 512GB on sale after looking at used 256GB ones. Only about 100€ difference. Eagerly waiting for mine to arrive. Any tips for a newbie?
Tips for the first timer, BE PATIENT WITH THE FIRST STARTUP AND PATCH, it’ll look non responsive/stuck in updating, but it is working, it might not progress for 5 or 10 minutes, believe me, it’s working. The second one I bought (for a family member) had me nervous (was refurbished) at how long I had to wait at some %'s of patching, but it went through and both work like a charm.
It is very very easy to emulate games, the guides on YouTube work perfectly and explain everything in multiple levels of detail. However it is hard to locate game files placed by steam, especially if you have a lot of games.
Don’t shy away from games that aren’t typically controller friendly, the community control layouts bring many creative and natural feeling solutions to games that you wouldn’t expect to be able to play, on top of that you can fine tune any given layout to make it truly work for your own needs.
The in store “deck compatability” guide is pretty useless, green/verified works 99.9% of the time (unless a recent patch has broken something, and it’s usually corrected very quickly) yellow/playable works 99.9% of the time but usually with “text inputs that require the keyboard overlay”, unverified/untested seems to work about 75% of the time, the only one that Ive put much weight in is “not supported”, usually there’s some overlay window or codex that just won’t work properly, but even then sometimes the games work, don’t rely on the steam window, check out the proton compatability website protondb . Com, it’s a much more extensive and thorough list, and will tell you how to get games working that valve claims the deck cannot handle.
Play aperture desk job at least once, it’s a great fun time, and will teach you a couple things about the deck you might not have expected (conductive joysticks that enable gyro controls),
Take a screen shot (steam button+r1) of the shortcut tips screen , so you can easily reference it whenever you’re trying to remember a chord command (like steam button+r1 for screenshot, or how to bring the overlay keyboard up).
If you have slow Internet and you want to download a ton of games, do it in “desktop” mode, and you can set the screen to turn off after a period of time (in case you’re worried about burn in, which I was at first but I’m much less concerned about now).
Now this is what I am talking about! Those are some really good pointers. I can totally see myself being too hasty with the initial boot. I’ll definitely follow these tips, thanks a ton!
Awesome! Hope you enjoy it, they’re great machines. Only tip I have is take a few minutes to learn how to use steam input. Once you can craft your own context menus and input schemes, it unlocks a ton of potential. Take advantage of the gyro, touchpads and rear buttons. It totally changed how I play truck simulator, and I set up a custom scheme for city of heroes, tons of fun and very usable for an MMO.
64gb is only really worth it if you intended to immediately upgrade the drive. Shader cache and updates stay on the main memory even for games that are on an SD card, over time it will fill up. it’s worth going for the 512 for a seamless useable system. Just my 2c as a deck owner.
I splurged for the 512GB on sale after looking at used 256GB ones. Only about 100€ difference. Eagerly waiting for mine to arrive. Any tips for a newbie?
Tips for the first timer, BE PATIENT WITH THE FIRST STARTUP AND PATCH, it’ll look non responsive/stuck in updating, but it is working, it might not progress for 5 or 10 minutes, believe me, it’s working. The second one I bought (for a family member) had me nervous (was refurbished) at how long I had to wait at some %'s of patching, but it went through and both work like a charm.
It is very very easy to emulate games, the guides on YouTube work perfectly and explain everything in multiple levels of detail. However it is hard to locate game files placed by steam, especially if you have a lot of games.
Don’t shy away from games that aren’t typically controller friendly, the community control layouts bring many creative and natural feeling solutions to games that you wouldn’t expect to be able to play, on top of that you can fine tune any given layout to make it truly work for your own needs.
The in store “deck compatability” guide is pretty useless, green/verified works 99.9% of the time (unless a recent patch has broken something, and it’s usually corrected very quickly) yellow/playable works 99.9% of the time but usually with “text inputs that require the keyboard overlay”, unverified/untested seems to work about 75% of the time, the only one that Ive put much weight in is “not supported”, usually there’s some overlay window or codex that just won’t work properly, but even then sometimes the games work, don’t rely on the steam window, check out the proton compatability website protondb . Com, it’s a much more extensive and thorough list, and will tell you how to get games working that valve claims the deck cannot handle.
Play aperture desk job at least once, it’s a great fun time, and will teach you a couple things about the deck you might not have expected (conductive joysticks that enable gyro controls),
Take a screen shot (steam button+r1) of the shortcut tips screen , so you can easily reference it whenever you’re trying to remember a chord command (like steam button+r1 for screenshot, or how to bring the overlay keyboard up).
If you have slow Internet and you want to download a ton of games, do it in “desktop” mode, and you can set the screen to turn off after a period of time (in case you’re worried about burn in, which I was at first but I’m much less concerned about now).
Now this is what I am talking about! Those are some really good pointers. I can totally see myself being too hasty with the initial boot. I’ll definitely follow these tips, thanks a ton!
Here’s an award for ya! 🏆
Awesome! Hope you enjoy it, they’re great machines. Only tip I have is take a few minutes to learn how to use steam input. Once you can craft your own context menus and input schemes, it unlocks a ton of potential. Take advantage of the gyro, touchpads and rear buttons. It totally changed how I play truck simulator, and I set up a custom scheme for city of heroes, tons of fun and very usable for an MMO.
Nice, thanks! I am already looking forward to the controls of Steam Deck, looking at your and the other comments about it!
Got one for my partner during the last refurb restock. It was perfect for Stardew and other small indies, which is all they cared to play.
Not long after, I upgraded my deck to 2TB, they inherited the 512GB SSD, everybody won.
Right now, you can get a 64GB deck and 1TB M.2 2230 SSD for $15 more than the 512GB LCD is on sale for.
I don’t think that’s the case anymore… That used to be true, but each of my library locations have their own compatdata and shadercache folders.
Yeah this was updated some time last year. When I was primarily in the SD card it ran most games surprisingly well